Felt Work: Peas in Pods

Finally 'Pea Project' has been finished during the Christmas break.

I bought a bag of colourful natural dyed felt in a organic shop in Germany many years ago; always wanted felt making but no idea how to do it.  

Some years ago, I picked up the felt.  At first I made little balls with warm coloured felt. It was a great fun of rolling a small piece of felt in palms, and a lot of tiny balls popped out from my hands in a short time. After having had enjoyed ball making, I looked at them for a while.  Do they look like peas?

Inspired from overgrown pods in my tiny vegetable patch at a corner of our back garden, green pods were created for the peas.  Four pods with peas were created soon after, but I abandoned them in a drawer because I had no idea what to do with them.

It's time to finish off to decorate these pods!  It was just before Christmas.  I took out some cross stitch threads from my tiny sewing container, and found old white cloth nappies made of cotton 100% in a bag of old cloths for recycling.

Two piece of pea pods work:

'get on with'

(felt, cross stitch threads, cotton cloth, 23x23cm)

Usually I don't use words in my art work, but it was at the end of the year.  So I felt like having a new years resolution.  'Get on with what?' is up to you.

'just being peas'

(felt, cross stitch threads, cotton cloth, 23x23cm)

Story of my Calendars sent to Germany

Yesterday lovely photographs came through to me vial email from a cousin of my husband who lives in a Bavarian town, between Nuremberg and Munich, Germany.  I was very delighted of her greeting message and the photos.

The beginning was just last month, in December 2013.  She posted a message to me regarding my 2013 calendar, which was shown on this blog on 22.October 2013.  Some of mothers, whose children as well as her child went to a kindergarten in Eichstätt of the State Bavaria, were interested in the calendar.  She asked in the message if I could send some of them to her.

I was very interested in the kindergarten, which their children attended, and searched the website, Waldkindergarten.  Would have been ideal for me when I was a small child!  Children spend their precious time mostly in the nature.  The name of the kindergarten, Spielraum Wald und Wiese, shows that children play and learn through the experience in the wonderful natural space including woodlands and meadows.

Waldkindergarten

photos: courtesy of the cousin and her husband

I wanted to contribute something towards running the kindergarten, and thought. Would it be a nice idea to send my calendars to Germany as a donation.  I suggested the cousin that she could sell the calendar to those who were interested in and the money collected would go straight to the kindergarten.

So, I rushed into packing a small batch of calendars in a parcel and sent the parcel to her, having hoped that it would arrive there before Christmas broke up so that she had time to sell them as Christmas presents.  Luckily she received the parcel in time and could collect the money.  She wrote that the money would be used towards purchasing new materials, which sounded brilliant!  The amount of my donation was small, though, I was glad that it helped a little bit for such a nice kindergarten.  Thank you so much, cousin and her family, as well as those who are involved in the Waldkindergarten!

PS: Ich möchte herzlich danken derjenigen, die die Kalender eingekauft haben.  Ich habe zwar, die Pflanzen bzw. Blätter, die hier in der Gegend, South Wales von Groß Britannien, gezeichnet, und die Namen sind auf Englisch gezeichnet.  Aber man kann ja die Pflanzen auch in Deutschland im Wald oder auf der Wiese finden, außer Englisch Oak.  Auch Oak, Eichen, wird in Deutschland üblich gesehen.  Ich wünsche ihnen, den Kalender durchs Jahr zu vergnügen!

A Walk in the Winter Garden: Roath Park

From hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping in the town centre of Cardiff, just some 5 minutes drive, I was in the Roath Park.

It was a drizzling mild morning.  The flowerbed near by the conservatory in the botanic garden, a part of the Roath Park, was emptied and showed the dark brown manure, where some gardeners were working on.  It was quiet.  While having been walking toward the lake, I have seen only a few dog walkers.

(This tree is, however, no Japanese Maple.)

I haven't been to the park for years, but still remembered there was a Japanese plant area on the way to the lake.  I would come here sometimes with my children and a playgroup when they were very young.  The Japanese maple trees still stood there, but the all the leaves fell down.  The leaves kept their vibrant red colour as it didn't take so long after the fall.

I didn't expect so much colours in the botanic garden.  But the peculiar light purple colour was caught by my eyes.

Murasaki-Shikibu, Japanese Beautyberry!  I had seen them, in fact, only in pictures.

Next to the Japanese Beautyberry, I found another Japanese shrubs, Nanten, Nandina Domestica.  They are commonly called Heavenly Bamboo or Sacred Bamboo (in Wikipedia) although they are not the bamboo family.  

This shrub is seen widely in every garden in Japan.  My parents' house, my grandparents' houses, my friends' ....... this plant is so familiar.  Nanten is evergreen bush and has berries in the winter.  My mother would decorate the branches with berries for the New Year's celebration, and often put the leaves under or next to food on festive plates.

In the rain, despite the rain, they made me a little bit happy like being in Japan, my home country.

Some shrubs like thorns under big trees had still green leaves and red berries.  Holly-like shrub had strikingly red and green holly-like but tiny leaves.  I cannot find the name.

South Wales has usually wet mild winter.  The autumn has just gone and left colourful gift behind.  The winter brings the plants to rest and looks after them until the spring takes turn.

Calendar 2014 Is On Its Way

The Calendar for 2014:

I have been printing the next year's calendar now, again of the leaves of British plants.  They will be in a landscape acrylic case.  This time I am trying a hanging version as well.  I'll see.  The picture below is Virginia Creeper for October.

Memory of our trees: Sycamore & Ash

There used to be two big trees between the fence of our neighbour's and ours.  Until just a few months ago.  

We have talked about concern of the overgrown trees over the roof of both of us for years.  Then at last, the chance came round in the early spring.
( If you don't know, please see my 'Tree Diary' on 15. April 2013.)

I really wanted to make a nice memory of trees for our next door neighbours, who have been the first to greet us when we moved into our house more than ten years ago and been always so friendly and gave hands for help whenever we needed.  Sadly the couple are going to move out because of downsizing of their family.

Sycamore (left) is on our neighbours' side, and ash is on our side.  The squirrel family has nestled somewhere near by and they run around our house.  They are running around outside, climbing up trees, jumping over from a branch to another branch.  The bird box has been at our ash tree still there (please see the photo on the previous diary) for our regular guests, blue tits, in the spring.

  Sycamore and Ash 2013

(23 x 30cm on A3 cartridge paper, 7 panels with 12 colours)

The leaves are coming out

I haven't written for a while...., and the summer has arrived at last.  It was quite late.  Many leaves are now growing quickly to catch up and to enjoy the short summer.

The ash tree in our front garden, which has had a massive pruning in April.  It looked very odd and bleak, but now young leaves are thriving from the pruned branches. 

 And,  as usual between the spring and the summer, a couple of blue tit nested in the bird box at the trunk of the ash tree, flying from branch to branch, perching on the roof of the nesting box, looking into through a small whole (Is a mum-to-be already sitting on eggs inside?).  The tiny blue tit is very busy.

Summer is coming!

It's now in May!  After the long chilly spring, the summer is approaching to the South Wales.  At once many flowers have started blooming here and there.  Though, only a few common toad flax's sprouts are coming out of the soil.  In the front garden, now!, early dog violet are blooming, which bloom usually in April.  The plants have delayed their growth schedule a couple of weeks (even a month), but I hope they catch up soon by the summer comes.

By the way, I have taken part in a 2-days brush-up workshop for screen printing over the weekend.  (Hurray, tomorrow is a bank holiday.)  I have learnt screen printing in my student time, many years ago.  But I didn't remember how to do it precisely; perhaps the method might have changed.

But, it hasn't changed much.  As we proceeded the screen print, I was gradually remembered how to do it!  


I brought one of my latest paper cut as a try how to transform it onto screen prints.  We were allowed to make prints up to A3 size.  So I brought an A3 size black paper cut work.  All the flowers I cut out from the paper were grown in my garden.  In fact, it doesn't matter to see this picture up-side-down or from whichever side.

My Summer Garden 2013

(paper cut, black paper, A3)

I tried 2 coloured prints and 1 coloured prints on the second day.  At first I separated the picture into 2 parts with Photoshop.  For the 1st layer yellowish colour was used, fully covered with the colour all over except clouds in the centre.  The 2nd layer was practically the same as the original paper cut, and coral orange was used.

My Summer Garden Orange 2013

(Screen Print from original paper cut, 2 colours, water-based acrylic colour, white cartridge paper, A3)

My Summer Garden Green 2013

(Screen Print from original paper cut, 1 colour, water-based acrylic colour, white cartridge paper, A3)

Without great guide and a lot of useful suggestions by Jude, who led this workshop, I couldn't have enjoyed much.  Thank you so much, Jude!

(The workshop was held at the Printhaus, Cardiff.  Click the name, left, or see the Link List at the bottom of this page.)